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Sergey Prokofiev Diaries 1915-1923: Behind the Mask.(Book review)
Sergey Prokofiev Diaries 1915-1923: Behind the Mask, translated from the Russian by Anthony Phillips. Faber and Faber Ltd., 2008. www.faber.co.uk. 784 pp. $44.62.
The second installment of Anthony Phillips's translation of the Prokofiev diaries is nothing short of superb. It spans the years 1915-1923, covering the Russian Revolution, Prokofiev's move to America and subsequent move to Paris. Prokofiev's diaries are, simply put, riveting. His prose is impressive and his ability to place the reader in the atmosphere of the time and place of his life is quite remarkable.
One could argue that music transcends the time and place in which it was written, and awareness of circumstances, events or the composer's state of mind while creating the work isn't necessary to truly comprehend the work. But reading Phillips's translation of the Prokofiev diaries just might change your mind, for the diaries are truly a revelation. I must confess that I often go to composer's diaries solely to look up information surrounding a particular work that I may be learning or teaching. But once I started reading I found it nearly impossible to put the book down. Prokofiev's perception of the world around him, including political events, is quite astute. We often think of him as being naive and uninterested when it comes to politics, but perhaps that assessment is not completely accurate. This is part of an entry from 21 November/4 December 1918:
[ILLUSTRATION ...
- Sergey Prokofiev Diaries 1915-1923: Behind the Mask
- Magazine article from: The American Music Teacher Litzelman, James February 1, 2009 700+ words
Sergey Prokofiev Diaries 1915-1923: Behind the Mask...Phillips's translation of the Prokofiev diaries is nothing short of superb. It...Phillips's translation of the Prokofiev diaries just might change your mind...
- Revolutions all round
- Magazine article from: New Statesman Hatherley, Owen May 5, 2008 700+ words
Revolutions all round Owen Hatherley Sergey Prokofiev: Diaries (1915-1922) - Behind the Mask Edited by Anthony...the historical detail in the second volume of Sergey Prokofiev's diaries (for a review of the first, Prodigious...
- Style and substance
- Magazine article from: New Statesman McBurney, Gerard January 22, 2007 700+ words
Style and substance Gerard McBurney Sergey Prokofiev: diaries 1907-1914 - prodigious youth Edited by Anthony Phillips Faber & Faber, 800pp, 25 An Oxford anecdote has the late Isaiah...
- Symphony taps a local talent for night of song.(Entertainment)
- Newspaper article from: The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR) February 20, 2005 700+ words
...Gustav Mahler's Ruckert Lieder and a concert piece that Sergey Prokofiev extracted from his score for Sergei Eisenstein's film...Ruckert Lieder, with mezzo-soprano Milagro Vargas, and Sergey Prokofiev's "Alexander Nevsky" film score. When: 8 p.m...
- International Piano Competitions, 3 vols.
- Magazine article from: Notes Takacs, Peter December 1, 1994 700+ words
...released in 1980. The memory of Irving weaving in and out chromatically while playing the all-white-note passagework in Sergey Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto is only the most vivid of the many howlers indelibly etched in my funny bone. There have been...
- Opera and the Enlightenment.
- Magazine article from: Notes Schmidt, Carl B. December 1, 1996 700+ words
...Magic in the Birth of Opera") or project the use of an Enlightenment period text into the twentieth century, showing how Sergey Prokofiev follows a time-honored operatic practice of drawing on eighteenth-century materials to fashion a new work entitled...
- A History of the Concerto.
- Magazine article from: Notes Green, Douglass M. September 1, 1995 700+ words
...of this repertory tends, by necessity, to be brief and superficial. The inclusion of works by certain composers -- Sergey Prokofiev and Dmitry Shostakovich, Edward Elgar and William Walton, Igor Stravinsky and Maurice Ravel, Bela Bartok, Paul Hindemith...
- CLASSICAL MUSIC.(Arts)(Classical Music)
- Newspaper article from: The Washington Times Ponick, T.L. September 13, 1998 700+ words
...contemporary and American music. Legendary American pianist John Browning will be in town Oct. 15 and Oct. 17 to perform Sergey Prokofiev's percussive Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Opus 26, with Maestro Slatkin conducting. On the same program will...
